John Swinburn

What is the difference between a response and a reply?

Exactly.  And thus I have evidence of subtleties too sophisticated for people like me.

Kindness is not an automatic benevolent behavior. Rather, it takes practice and repetition. It requires regular exercise to fully develop into a disposition. It seems to me that developing a kind disposition is akin to training a dog; it takes considerable patience and effort, but the outcome is worth the investment. I’m working on it.

The rumble of distant thunder roused me from a restless sleep. I turned to look at the clock: three forty-seven. A few minutes later, the rumbles became bone-jarring cracks and flashes of blue and white light lit up the room. The lightning was, and is, reminiscent of the strobe lights used in rock concerts when I was a teenager. It’s just after four in the morning and I’m up for the day.

The stories we tell ourselves are mirrors. The stories we tell others are masks. But, sometimes, we confuse ourselves about the audiences for our tales, telling ourselves lies and confiding in people we have no business trusting.

As I remember, my habit of using sugar in my iced tea was a brief departure from good taste, perhaps a year or less when I was a child. Today, just the idea of putting sugar—or any sweetener—in tea causes an unpleasant physical reflex. I say I don’t like sweet foods much, yet I will happily consume cookies or cakes or an occasional piece of candy. Perhaps it’s intense sweetness I find unappealing. Why this is relevant to me as I drink a cup of coffee (black and unsweetened, of course) at 4:30 in the morning eludes me.  But there you go.

The options are to build a bridge, walk across a bridge, or blow up a bridge. Fewer and fewer are willing to build it and meeting someone in the middle conveys weakness. That leaves just one choice.

I light a stick of incense and watch the smoke, in a gyrating dance of slow-motion chaos, rise gently and disappear. The smoke, just a smudge in the air, leaves behind aromatic evidence of sensuality and longing, a search for tranquility not found in thin air. Serenity, found only in skin and breath, never resides in the remnants of fire.

I wonder if my wife would indulge me by allowing me to experiment with shrimp spring rolls for breakfast one morning soon?  I would have to buy some of the ingredients for the rolls (rice paper wrappers, mint leaves and basil leaves, bean thread noodles), but I think we have what I need for the dipping sauces (I better check on the hoisin sauce, though). If she’s not up for a breakfast version, I could do lunch, I suppose.

I remember staying the night at a bed and breakfast in the New Mexico desert. It was a stout and stately enclave of faded, cracking adobe and distressed cedar, a place rich with the musical traditions of New York. Owned by a woman who insisted that her guest sleep on starched sheets, the tiny compound was steeped in Native American culture and overflowing with an attitude of abundance and prosperity. Strangely opulent, the grandeur of old money sent to live in the southwest seemed surprisingly at home amidst the tangle of shrubs and dust on the banks of the Rio Grande.

A heavy steel sledgehammer swings with full force, striking a piece of sculpture made of thick strands of gold and yellow and green glass. The glass, woven together in a rich tangle of color and form, is a work of art that took a year to plan and craft into a thing of beauty. Was. Was a work of art. Look at it now, sharp shards of time and silica and creativity and energy, all unbound and alive with loathing for steel and the people who make it.